Collecting my data from 20+ IDE drives

[Winterpool]

I've quite a few old machines sitting round various parts of North America. Being old, they almost all contain IDE / PATA hard drives, ranging in capacity from 2 GB to 650. I should like to transfer most of this data from the IDE drives to my contemporary SATA drives (I've been amassing TB drives to this end... and a 1.5 TB Seagate I don't quite trust for the job, heh).

What would be the most efficient, least aggravating method for harvesting the data from my disparate IDE drives? I'd originally been moving files gradually over a LAN to my storage servers, but this is taking rather a long time, and many of the drives are 'orphaned' and have to be swapped back inside these old machines. I wonder if it might be better to

- Get a drive 'rack' into which I would place all my IDE drives by swapping them into the drive tray. Installing and uninstalling drives from a tray seems less painful than continually swapping them into internal drive bays. Transfer data directly to SATA drives in the same machine.

- Buy an external enclosure (USB 2.0 or FireWire) into which I'd swap the IDE drives as above.

I've zero experience with external enclosures and have read some reviews suggesting it's a pain in the arse to get drives inside some of them.

Also if I simply connected a 'naked' drive through a dock or even an IDE ribbon running into a semi-opened case, would I be asking for data corruption from EM issues?

 

[Elixer]

Hmm, I would go with something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16812161002
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16812232002
or something along those lines, most use the same controller, and just slap their name on it.

Read some reviews on the product, just to get a rough idea what to expect.

Would really be the best bet, and you don't have to worry about the crap ribbon cable...

USB 2, while not the fastest, I am betting it is fast enough for all your HDs that are less than 200GB. I had to do the ribbon cable method on a 12GB HD, and it did *not* work in a external case...and it sure was a PITA!

*edit, forgot to mention, for your "Also if I simply connected a 'naked' drive through a dock or even an IDE ribbon running into a semi-opened case, would I be asking for data corruption from EM issues?" question, that is exactly what I did. I then did a random byte-to-byte compare on files, to see if they match, and all went well. As long as the ribbon cable is within spec, and not the really long ones that are not in spec( over 18"?), you should be fine.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Elixer
Hmm, I would go with something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16812161002

:thumbsup: Yes... eliminates the need for rebooting with a drive rack setup..

 

[Winterpool]

Mmm, didn't consider the fact that each time I add what's essentially an internal drive (connected via IDE, either external or in a tray), I'll have to reboot for the BIOS and operating system to detect it.

Which leaves an external USB connexion, with the drive either enclosed or naked. Some of the reviewers are reporting data corruption issues with large transfers, but they seem to be blaming the adapter chip and not the physical environment round the drive. I know some of the forum posters have reported issues with IDE to SATA adapters.

Was tempted to go for the Apricorn adapter since it apparently includes a copy of Acronis True Image, but the version thereof doesn't work with Vista.

 

[Blain]

Your choices are pretty simple...
1. IDE drive rack & reboot with each HD change.
2. No drive rack, connect directly to ribbon cable & reboot with each HD change.
3. The IDE to USB adapter, simply unplugging the USB cable with each HD change.
4. Pay someone to do the data transfer for you.

 

[Modelworks]

You don't have to reboot for the drive to be detected most of the time. The bios is only used until windows boots then it takes over. You can hotplug drives then go to device manager and 'scan for hardware changes' and it should find them.

I would just get a long ide cable + power cable and hotplug and copy them all one by one.

 

[Blain]

Go ahead and give that hot swap PATA plan a try.
Then order this adapter.

 

[Winterpool]

Indeed, disconnecting consumer IDE drives whilst they're spinning doesn't seem a terribly good idea.

I've been perusing the IDE-to-USB adapters on Newegg but am leaning towards the Apricorn. I presume these come with power adapters that terminate in a Molex connector to plug into the drive?

 

[sxr7171]

I got a cheap $15-20 external USB to which I just switch out the drives because I don't even bother putting the cover on. Just snap the drive in copy, pull the drive out and repeast for all your drives. It will be slow, but it's a one time process. Do the big ones overnight and the small ones during the day.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Winterpool
Indeed, disconnecting consumer IDE drives whilst they're spinning doesn't seem a terribly good idea.

I've been perusing the IDE-to-USB adapters on Newegg but am leaning towards the Apricorn. I presume these come with power adapters that terminate in a Molex connector to plug into the drive?

Yes the Apricorn unit comes with an AC adapter for supplying power to the PATA drives.

 

[Keitero]

The IDE to USB adapter would be the fastest option if you are planning on copying that many drives. Or you could just setup a large network and copy the drives from each machine to a central server.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Keitero
Or you could just setup a large network and copy the drives from each machine to a central server.

Originally posted by: Winterpool
What would be the most efficient, least aggravating method for harvesting the data from my disparate IDE drives?

 

[Keitero]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: Keitero
Or you could just setup a large network and copy the drives from each machine to a central server.

Originally posted by: Winterpool
What would be the most efficient, least aggravating method for harvesting the data from my disparate IDE drives?

What? Then again, my office is KVM hell for this type of work so I guess it doesn't bother me. QQ

 

[StarTech]

I have used many times the VANTEC USB naked adapter with no problems. It can handle both IDE and SATA which is a plus long term.

 

[Winterpool]

I'm ordering the recommended Apricorn 'DriveWire' adapter. Will report after I try it out.

Copying over network was my first idea, but this proved too slow, particularly since many drives were orphaned (no longer in computers).

 

[Winterpool]

On a related note, what's the simplest data integrity check? I've been using md5 checksums from command line, but that's not terribly graceful. It would be nice if there were a GUI program that would allow you to highlight a whole bunch of files on two different locations and then compare with a mouse-click.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Winterpool
On a related note, what's the simplest data integrity check? I've been using md5 checksums from command line, but that's not terribly graceful. It would be nice if there were a GUI program that would allow you to highlight a whole bunch of files on two different locations and then compare with a mouse-click.

A quick way to do that would be to use winrar, it does integrity checks automatically.
Set the compression to Store and all it will do is place all the files in one archive with no compression, so it is really quick. Then copy that file to the other drive and unrar it. If anything is wrong with the crc of the file winrar will tell you when it extracts the file.

 

[Elixer]

Originally posted by: Winterpool
On a related note, what's the simplest data integrity check? I've been using md5 checksums from command line, but that's not terribly graceful. It would be nice if there were a GUI program that would allow you to highlight a whole bunch of files on two different locations and then compare with a mouse-click.

Google ' hkSFV 2.0.1', it does what you need, and you can set it for md5 or crc32...
Same with this one: http://www.quicksfv.org/

Another nice little utility is teracopy (google that as well), it will do a copy & verify (if you want), so it will always be 100% correct on copies.

All are free.
(NOT teracopy PRO, that is $$)

 

[Winterpool]

Right, so I received the Apricorn DriveWire at last. Connected it to a 120 GB Seagate 7200.7 Barracuda via IDE, and then via USB to one of my servers (Windows 2008 x64). The two partitions on the hard drive are detected and assigned drive letters, but they're not detected as formatted. Windows wants to format them. No data found of course.

This is somewhat similar to Slickone's issue, though I have drive letters in both Disk Management and Explorer.

I tried setting the jumper on the drive to both Master and Cable Select. Connected first the DriveWire adapter (IDE), then the Molex power, waited a few seconds as the drive spun up, and then connected the USB cable.

I was a little surprised (though I shouldn't have been if I'd looked at the photos more carefully) that the Apricorn adapter plugs directly into the IDE interface on the drive. This makes it somewhat awkward, as it sort of hangs off the back. I'd have felt more comfortable connecting the drive and adapter via an IDE ribbon. In addition, the power cable is indeed short (as the reviews noted), though it can be replaced with a longer cable.

 

[Winterpool]

Drive letters show up, and Disk Managment recognises they are NTFS and claims they are 'healthy'. Explorer displays no size or free space. If one looks up the properties for a partition, it displays 0 bytes capacity. Windows claims I 'need to format the disk in Drive E: before you can use it'.

I've had issues like this before, where a reconnected drive doesn't have its partitions and file tables fully detected by the OS. I know I've solved this problem in the past (er, without reformatting the drive), but I've no idea how I did it. I also recall that in previous cases, the drives would sometimes be detected in one OS (often Linux) and not another (usually Windows).

Edited: I believe (when it's not a physical issue) this sort of problem generally results from sort of partition table corruption, and there are utilities to repair them sufficiently to pull off the data. Would appreciate recommendations for free apps of this sort!

 

[Blain]

Are they hidden OEM restore partitions?

 

[Winterpool]

They're conventional NTFS data partitions. I made two of them on this particular drive, and they both should be nearly full with data. I'm inclined to believe the partition tables got jumbled somehow, and I probably require a partition table utility to recover the data.

 

[Elixer]

Originally posted by: Winterpool
They're conventional NTFS data partitions. I made two of them on this particular drive, and they both should be nearly full with data. I'm inclined to believe the partition tables got jumbled somehow, and I probably require a partition table utility to recover the data.

Look no further than testdisk.

It is a great free program.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

 

[Winterpool]

Tried TestDisk this evening. It found the partitions straightaway (ie it didn't need to recover them to see them). I've a feeling if I loaded this hard drive into a Linux machine, it would also see the partitions.

Went through the partition recovery process anyhow, per the TestDisk instructions. After reboot, the drives show up labelled 'Access Denied'. Disk Management now shows the drives with the same amount of free space as their capacity. Still 'healthy' NTFS. Can't see any of the files, can't open the drives.

I'm going to try copying the individual directories using TestDisk; perhaps I can recover all the data that way.

 

[elconejito]

I think you need to take ownership of the files. I've seen this a few times on NTFS drives placed into a new computer. Even if you have the same username/password. In Vista, right-click on the drive and choose properties > security tab > advanced button > owner tab > edit button to change the owner. i think XP is pretty much the same and probly server 2008.